


What follows a mournful croon?

by RahDamon



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Dragon AU, Lovers, M/M, Minor Character Death, also mention of violence and sexual implications, just ... how to tag it without spoilers?, prince shiro and thug leader Keith
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-13
Updated: 2018-02-13
Packaged: 2019-03-18 00:13:44
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,916
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13670259
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RahDamon/pseuds/RahDamon
Summary: Dragons are precious. Dragons are powerful. Dragons are mighty. And dragons belong to the crowned knights, who protect their kingdoms and nobles with loyal hearts and unbreakable souls. Dragons belong to the kings and queens and their offspring, who have sworn to elevate their kingdoms and raise it to unreachable heights.The common folk cannot dare hope to bond with a dragon as dragons have tempers the size of the untamable ocean. Most would have never thought of trying and dying, weren’t it for a group of evil thugs.These thugs appeared four years ago and have plagued countless kingdoms, never ceasing to ravage the poor and kill merchants like the savages they are. The remarkable thing, if we dare call it remarkable, is that they aren’t common thugs. They have one thing no other evil group can call their own.Dragons.Keith laughed as he threw the newspaper into the fire.





	What follows a mournful croon?

_There’s one thing that is universally true. A truth so clear and unfought that every kingdom and empire adheres to it._

  


_Dragons are precious. Dragons are powerful. Dragons are mighty. And dragons belong to the crowned knights, who protect their kingdoms and nobles with loyal hearts and unbreakable souls. Dragons belong to the kings and queens and their offspring, who have sworn to elevate their kingdoms and raise it to unreachable heights._

 

 

_The common folk cannot dare hope to bond with a dragon as dragons have tempers the size of the untamable ocean. Most would have never thought of trying and dying, weren’t it for a group of evil thugs._

  


_These thugs appeared four years ago and have plagued countless kingdoms, never ceasing to ravage the poor and kill merchants like the savages they are. The remarkable thing, if we dare call it remarkable, is that they aren’t common thugs. They have one thing no other evil group can call their own._

  


_Dragons. They have dragons. No one knows where they got their dragons, which poor rider was murdered for his pregnant dam._

  


_Our dear, good knights have been trying to rid us of these pests but they have been unsuccessful so far. Ambushes and assassinations thin out our determined defenders._

  


Keith laughed, a short, sharp bark that even he knew was the furthest thing from a laugh. He grabbed the newspapers and without hesitation threw them into the bonfire in the middle of their camp.

  


“You’re that amused by this?” Shiro murmured as he slid up to him, pressing their sides together.

  


Allowing himself to lean further into Shiro, Keith sighed before craning his head and letting it fall on Shiro’s shoulder. No one was looking into their direction right now but even if someone were to look, what would they do? Keith was the leader of this motley gang, he could do whatever the hell he wanted to.

  


“Keith.” Shiro nudged him again and wrapped an arm around Keith. “I’m serious. You’re not worried?”

  


“Worried? Have you met me?” Keith grinned. “And no I’m not worried. We’re not as bad as they say. They talk as if we’re only killing, always killing.”

  


“We do almost always kill.”

  


With a snort Keith turned around so he could nuzzle Shiro’s throat. As Shiro’s breath stocked for a moment and his throat vibrated when he sucked air back in, Keith chuckled.

  


“We kill those who attack us first. But … do you really want to talk about knights and noble brats wet behind their ears when we could do something else? Something like this?”

  


Without preamble Keith bit into Shiro’s throat, digging in his canines. A sort of blood lust rushed through Keith as Shiro moaned, hips lightly thrusting up and showing Keith exactly how little it took to get Shiro excited. Not that Keith minded that. He loved that he had the power to make this powerful man putty in his hands with a mere twist of his lips and the grace of his teeth.

  


“Oh?” Shiro gasped. “What… _oh god_ …do you have in mind?”

  


“Well,” Keith drawled, grinding his hips against Shiro’s again and enjoying the low moan it elicited before stepping away. “I can think of a few things. The question is … can you catch me?” With a smirk, he grinded his knee against Shiro’s groin and slipped out of strong-corded arms.

  


Laughing Keith jumped away, head thrown back in joy and sprinted through the camp. Shiro’s low curses behind him were music in Keith’s ears and he didn’t even care about the insults thrown his way when he jumped through the bonfire.

  


He ran towards the dragon dens, knowing that if he reached Onythis and Crimson’s nest he’d have both, lost and won. Won the race, lost the war.

  


Thank the wings that just before he reached the nest, a cold hand curled around his wrist and used his speed against Keith. With a yelp he was thrown against the wall, those muscled arms caging him in as they pinned his head there and a thick leg sliding between Keith’s legs.

  


“That wasn’t nice, “ Shiro hissed, looking at him with intense, heated eyes.

  


“I’m not nice,” Keith said as he arched up to meet Shiro’s lips in a surprisingly soft kiss. Well, surprising to Shiro who was obviously thrown off by the gentleness.

  


Maybe he should do it more often, if the way Shiro fell into the kiss was any indication. It wouldn’t be any bother to be soft and all rounded edges with Shiro because Shiro might not have been the only man he had ever fucked but he might be the only man Keith ever loved.

  


Keith hadn’t told Shiro yet but … one day, one day soon, he would.

  
⚜️   


Pale skin and black hair against burning red and orange scales was such a pretty sight. Crimson and Keith made such a pretty picture curled up together, both satisfied, both slumbering.

  


Onythis agreed, a gentle hum inside Shiro’s mind in concord with his thoughts. However, disgruntled growls were also raging through it. Onythis wasn’t happy with their current situation, wasn’t happy with deceiving the mate he had finally found and come to love.

  


“It’s not like I like it,” Shiro murmured, leaning back to get his naked back sliding against black, purple tinted scales. He was careful not to tug the hand knotted together with Keith’s. Keith had just gone to sleep, it’d be a shame to wake him up.

  


‘Abandon it’ was whispered in his thoughts, his soul, his being.

  


Explaining to someone without a dragon bond how one worked was almost impossible. How could you explain the way your soul tangled with the soul of another being to the point of not knowing who’s the human and who’s the dragon at times? How to explain the shared feelings and the telepathic and empathic connection? How to explain the loneliness, the sheer agony of a ripped bond?

  


Shiro had had a dragon before Onythis. She had been called Her Majesty and Shiro at four years old had thought himself clever. It was a faint thought, unraveled by time, but he had given his first dragon that name because it had been female and the most powerful woman he had known was his mother, the Queen.

  


Her Majesty had been loyal, a dainty dragon bred especially for Shiro although not as powerful or carefully selected as the battle dragons his older twin brothers had received. Shiro hadn’t minded. He had known that his brothers, of which one would inherit the throne one day, would need stronger dragons to defend themselves. He just had wanted a good companion.

  


Unfortunately when he was 12 Shiro had been kidnapped. Her Majesty had tried to defend him but she hadn’t been big enough to carry him, nevermind to spit fire. Instead of killing her, though, his kidnappers had muzzled her and took her as well.

  


In the coming months his kidnappers had used him for entertainment and fighting, had pit him against common folk and beasts in the hope of either killing him off or auctioning him as gladiator.

  


No matter how much he had screamed or tried to escape, they were always stronger, always crueler, mocking and jeering at him. When Shiro was 13, almost 14, he had learned to hate the unlawful, the thugs, those who did unjust things like stealing and killing and ravaging.

  


One day his kidnappers had been more excited than usual, their foul faces bright enough to maybe make them look good. They had built an arena - which had baffled Shiro at the time - and pushed him into it.

  


With careful steps he had entered it and come face to face with a beast that looked and felt familiar. It had been a small beast, just a smidge bigger than Shiro himself, its hide scarred and burned and broken.

  


Without knowing why Shiro had felt devastated at the mere sight of the beast, pity eclipsing anything else he had felt, even the fury and loathing and will to survive. And when it had looked up into his eyes, its eyes milky and dead and vomit-yellow, Shiro had felt a jolt going through him.

  


This beast, this beast mutilated and made into a monster, had been his once, had been Her Majesty. “Oh what they have they done to you?” Shiro had whispered into the arena, a place without mercy or love.

  


A loud, shrill noise had rung through the arena and Shiro had flinched staring up to one of his kidnappers. The man had been grinning down at him, gaps in his mouth where teeth should have been. That grin had widened and Shiro had learned quickly why.

  


Her Majesty had bit into his right arm and with a twist and pull of her head ripped it off. He had screamed, pain blinding everything. It had almost drowned out Her Majesty’s agonized screech and his kidnappers’ gleeful laughter.

  


But in that one moment of pain there had been a clarity in the mind of both dragon and human. Milky eyes had turned clear and mournfully she had crooned in his mind, a wordless plea for forgiveness. He had soothed her, urged her to think. ‘Is there a way out for us?’ he had thought to her.

  


She hadn’t responded with words but a mixture of feelings - despair, determination, resolve, resignation - and nodded at him, whispering to him in words for the first time . ‘Trust me.’

  


Shiro had nodded and let himself be swept off his feet, he had let her scream in his face and lift her claws as though to split him in two, he had watched her open her wings, just as scarred as the rest of her body.

  


And with a blinding yell she had started whirling up the sand in the arena, hiding them from sight. He had grinned at her, telling her that she was a good girl when she had grabbed him and they had flown off.

  


They had been flying! Shiro had been so happy, they had escaped, they had been tasting the wind of freedom and once they had healed they would get rid of all criminals and bandits.

  


It wasn’t meant to be. Once they had touched down in the courtyard of the castle, maids and servants running around screaming and yelling, Her Majesty had collapsed, right on top of Shiro. It had to have looked like something else because Shiro heard the lance pierce Her Majesty’s flesh, felt his heart speed up and then give in, stopping.

  


His brothers had later told him that they had never heard anyone scream as loud or long as he did when his dragon died and his soul was shredded with his dragon’s death.

  


Funnily enough, Shiro had returned on the day which would have served as celebration for his 14th birthday but had been reset as his death day. He had begged his parents to let his identity as Prince die and make him a knight.

  


Shiro wanted to fight, wanted to get rid of all evil plaguing their lands, wanted to cleanse the kingdom of thugs and bandits. He didn’t want to be the spare of the spare. If people knew he was alive, he would have been exactly that.

  


His father had crouched down, put their foreheads together and stared into Shiro’s eyes. “Are you certain, my son? If you are, this might be the last time I call you son.”

  


Even so, despite Shiro’s heart aching at losing his brothers and parents he had insisted and from then on, he had been put through the trials of becoming a knight, deemed as an orphaned youth who somehow had caught the eye and favour of the royal family. Essentially, he hadn’t lost his family but there had been whispers that because of his similar looks to the lost Prince, he had been pity adopted.

  


However, it had never been too much of a problem and no one could have claimed favoritism, not with the way Shiro had excelled and pushed on. Not with the way he had been the first one on the training field and the last one to leave.

  


Was it any wonder then, that he had shattered the records of the youngest knight? He had advanced at such an accelerated pace that by the time he was 18, he was deemed fit for a dragon. Usually a knight would have to be in service for ten years, after seven years of schooling, before they received the honor of a dragon.

  


Before long, Shiro had breezed through the aptitude tests, had proven his theoretical knowledge of taking care of a battle dragon and had been led to the breeding grounds to search for an egg. Tradition says that a knight had to pick out their own dragon’s egg.

  


No one had known but Shiro had been apprehensive about a new dragon. He hadn’t known if he could properly bond with another dragon - and it had felt vaguely like betrayal. Her majesty had been dead for four, almost five years, but still, still he had held onto her.

  


One thing Shiro had been absolutely sure of, was that he hadn’t wanted a female. His instructor had laughed, not aware of the history behind that  _demand,_ and told him that there was no way of knowing. He’d feel a bond to one of the eggs for sure, and whatever dragon hatched would be his and no swapping and switching.

  


It had rubbed Shiro the wrong way, the tone his instructor had used, as though other knights thought so little of their future partners, thought their dragons as little more than pack mule. “They do,” had been the response. Shiro had wanted to scream.

  


In the end, he had chosen an egg with a purple and golden pattern or rather, shades of purple with gold lines as delicate as gold threads spinning through it. As soon as his bare human hand - not the prosthetic he had received to replace his other arm - had touched the egg, all his doubts flew away.

  


_This is his dragon. No other would do._

  


When Onythis had hatched, he had been of the same opinion.

  


_This is his human. No other could do._

  


Fast forward a few years and news about a pillaging gang of dragon riders reached the castle. It put the royal family and the academy of Knights into shock.

  


There was a strict regulation of dragon eggs and dragons! Dragons were almost extinct in the wild - not that any wild dragon would allow a human in reach of their nest to get an egg. And taming a wild one was impossible - the bond wouldn’t take.

  


Of course, knights with their own dragons were immediately sent out to bring these Dragon Raiders to justice.

  


The royal family was confident in their knights’ skill until one dinner a package arrived at their table - the harnesses of their knights, human and dragon bones, and a threat to stop bothering the Raiders. They would do as they pleased and if there were no opposition, death would be kept to a minimum.

  


Everyone had been in a tizzy. What to do? No more lives should be lost but they couldn’t let run bandits free.

  


Ryou, the Crown Prince, had ended the discussion smashing the table and speaking with decisive determination. “If we let ourselves cower once, the pack will think they can run amok, unchecked. Send a stronger unit!”

  


So it had been done. A stronger unit had been sent.

  


Twice.

  


Both units had been sent back in bones.

  


There had been wild talk about graduating cadets early and giving them dragons. Arguing and despair had echoed through the halls at any time of day.

  


“What about sending in a spy and cutting off the head of our problem hydra?” That question had finally quietened all voices. Such a plan had potential. But who to send?

  


“Our best one. The one unknown to most of the outside.”

  


Shiro had accepted the assignment, had accepted having his past rewritten once again. If he could help to bring down the biggest thug threat to date, what was a bit of acting and living another lie?

  


But he hadn’t counted on Keith. He hadn’t counted on the fact that he might like the thug life when it didn’t involve killing and stealing. And Shiro hadn’t counted on the fact that he might fall in love with his target.

  


A growl rattled through his brain and Shiro glared at Onythis. Fine, he hadn’t thought he’d fall in love with Keith when he started this ruse of a crush. He truly hadn’t expected a lie to become the truth.

  


His prosthetic hovered over Keith’s head before cupping his cheek and stroking the skin. In his sleep Keith sighed, smiled and nuzzled Shiro’s hand, acting like a satisfied cat or a well-fed baby dragon.

  


Keith was lovely. So lovely in appearance and spirit. If Keith hadn’t been who he was, Shiro would have dragged him in front of his parents and announced his decision to marry that boy. He loved that boy with his whole heart and his parents had always cheered for true love.

  


Reality was a cruel thing, though. Shiro loved Keith but Shiro was also loyal to the bone.

  


No matter how much he loved Keith, one day soon, he’d take Keith’s head. Shiro’s heart ached and his dragon crooned mournfully.


End file.
